HONEST, YES. BUT WHY BRUTAL?

After six hours of “brutally honest” conversations between quarterback Brett Favre and Green Bay Packers management, they parted ways.

  • Jim Collins, who authored From Good to Great, says one of the key differences between good companies and great ones is their ability to “confront the brutally honest facts.”

  • One company even uses the term “brutal” in its statement of values:

Candor — We believe in "brutal conversations"; the ability to be honest, direct and challenging with each other while always being professional. We will never tell you "what you want to hear", but we will tell you what you need to hear.

What does the word “brutal” add to that statement? And how do you square “being professional” with being brutal? Let’s look behind the cliché and see it for what it is.

Merriam-Webster defines brutal like this: Befitting a brute: as a: grossly ruthless or unfeeling b: cruel,   cold-blooded c: harsh, severe d: unpleasantly accurate and incisive.

Honestly, does honesty have to be brutal to be effective? Does the truth have to leave us bloodied and reeling in order for it to have an impact? Even when delivered with kindness and goodwill, truth can be hard to hear. I can think of plenty of instances when people held up a mirror for me, and I didn’t find the reflection particularly attractive. But that was about me, not the honesty of the reflection.

Thinking back, it seems the times the truth became brutal – whether delivered or received – had to do with a desire to land a punch. The intention was to hurt, or to exercise authority, or deliver bad news in a cruel way.

Honesty? By all means. Brutal? Well, maybe that’s not really necessary. Perhaps we could start thinking about “compassionately honest conversations.” Or better yet, we could wish for the day when “conversations” won’t need to be modified by the word “honest.”

-- MAREN

WINNING vs. COLLABORATING

The headline in the Aug. 8 Business Week got my attention: “Winning the tough conversations at work.” The column lists four steps to follow in an uncomfortable conversation with someone at work (the example used is a manager talking to a subordinate.)

It is typical of advice offered as “good management techniques” that in reality are subtle manipulative techniques to get others to do something you want without revealing your intentions. Our bias is that this undermines trust, accountability and true collaboration. 

The first red flag in the Business Week column was the headline. Collaboration and “winning” are mutually exclusive.

Step 1 tells managers to talk about commitment to the relationship because “people are more inclined to change their behavior when they appreciate just how much you care about the relationship.” 

How can a relationship be authentic when people use the relationship to instigate a change in behavior? An authentic conversation means being direct about the business reasons for changing the behavior. 

Techniques like “filling their emotional tanks” and “replace ‘you’ with ‘we’” also have manipulation at their core. You can see it in the suggested conversation:
  • “John, you are one of the most creative designers I have ever met.”

  • “Let’s talk about we can get all the tasks completed on time” (emphasis added).
Using praise to “soften” a request/demand for behavior change, or talking about “we” when clearly it is “you” who is being asked to change – well, you get the point. And it’s likely the employee does too. 

An alternative would be to have an authentic conversation by:
  • Raising the difficult issue with goodwill (“When a client's project is delivered late, it puts this business at risk.”)

  • Acknowledge your own contribution to the situation (“I didn’t stay on top of things the way I should have, and this seems to have contributed to the missed deadline.”)

  • Frame choices for the future (“I have some thoughts on how this could be avoided, and I’d like to hear your ideas on what could be done differently in the future.”)
Direct, adult-to-adult conversations are a fundamental to creating a culture where people take accountability for their own performance. 

-- MAREN

AUTHENTIC CONVERSATIONS ARE ... TRENDY!

We were recently working with clients, and we told them that the book would be out on 08.08.08, an auspicious date. One of the clients smiled at me and said, “You know, authentic is very trendy right now.”  It made me laugh.

When we returned home, I did a search Google search on “trend authentic” and got results on all kinds of things: travel, food, car parts, blogs, and bisexuality(!) 

Our hope is to get so many people engaging in authentic conversations that what happens is transformational, not trendy. Rather than seeing authentic conversations go the way of the zoot suit, Big Hair Bands and VCRs, we’d like to see them revolutionize our culture the way the Internet has.

-- MAREN